On Monday, Sameh Shoukry, the foreign minister of Egypt, said that the Israeli government had yet to take a stance that permitted the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip to open.
Egypt has sought since the battle broke out to hold the Rafah crossing operational, Shoukry said, calling the problem encountered by the Palestinian people in Gaza “dangerous.”
The fate of assistance deliveries and limited evacuations through the only entry to Gaza not controlled by Israel was in question on Monday, after Egyptian sources said a temporary truce was struck but Israel and Hamas said no agreement was in place.
Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, had said in Cairo on Sunday that the Rafah crossing between Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Gaza would be reopened and a mechanism agreed with Israel to provide aid.
More than 2 million Gazans have been under siege since Israel launched an extreme bombardment and siege in revenge for an attack by the Hamas the Palestinian militant group. Some 600,000 Gazans have been forced to flee their home while supplies are running out.
Egypt has said Rafah is closed but has been made useless by Israeli strikes on the Palestinian side.
Two Egyptian security sources had told Reuters that a ceasefire in southern Gaza the previous several hours had been agreed to start at 0600 GMT on Monday to allow for the entrance of assistance, as well as limited evacuations of foreign passport holders from Gaza.
However, Israel rejected that.
A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, “There is currently no truce and humanitarian aid in Gaza in exchange for getting foreigners out.”
Izzat El-Reshiq, the Hamas official, also told Reuters there was no reality to media reports that Rafah was reopening or that there was a ceasefire.
The Egyptian security sources say they were perplexed by the Israeli rejection after having received confirmations previously.
There had been no bombardments on the crossing on Monday and the Egyptian side of the crossing was ready, a source at Rafah said.
Hundreds of tons of assistance from NGOs and several nations were waiting on trucks in the nearby Egyptian town of Al-Arish on Monday for approval to enter Gaza, two sources there and an eyewitness told Reuters.
Reuters video showed UN-flagged fuel trucks emerging to leave Gaza for Egypt through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing.
